Page 21 of Searching for Elizabeth (A Pride and Prejudice Variation)

—very early the next morning—

George Wickham was feeling supremely confident. As usual, he had managed to get out of a scrape with little harm to himself. Breaking out of gaol should have been difficult and dangerous, but as was his wont, he managed to do it with charm, not violence.

It had taken days of carefully orchestrated conversation with the guards. There were four guards, two per shift, and he felt quite lucky that he did not owe money to any of them. All four started off on good terms with him, he thought, because before he even started his campaign to be freed, he was certain that their expressions showed their sympathy.

His efforts at converting at least one of them from guard to accomplice started with humble gratitude every time they brought him food or water, and every time they emptied his chamber pot.

The second step was simply conversation. He found out about each guard’s life. Knowledge was power, and he could often figure out ways to motivate a man if he knew, for example, if the man was married or unwed, second son of a baron or son of a farmer, happy or bitter.

Naturally, in these conversations, it was crucial that Wickham present himself as a good sort of man. Someone who was an innocent victim of a rich nob, but who managed to keep his chin up and his face smiling. He gradually mentioned details of the ways in which he had been wronged, and he did so in a self-deprecating, sometimes even humorous, way.

He could tell that the original sympathetic attitude of all four guards had increased in fervor. He had played on their emotions perfectly. When Barker complained about the colonel going along with “that rich bounder,”

Wickham pretended to defend him, saying, “Well, the colonel does have to get along with the community, and a wealthy person is always an important figure in any neighborhood.”

His seeming defense of Colonel Forster had made Barker even angrier.

Fielding was especially sympathetic about Wickham being denied a lucrative living, being denied the chance to live a peaceful and comfortable life instead of scraping by in the militia. Garner had always hated the sight of Darcy, who he called an arrogant son of a bitch, and he seemed likeliest to let Wickham go. Staniels was the follower type, and he seemed to think everything Garner thought and to feel everything Garner felt.

Shortly after midnight, Wickham had told Garner and Staniels that he had gotten a letter during the last shift, and it was from his cousin, reporting that Wickham’s beloved aunt was dying. It only took a few minutes to convince the two guards to let him go, just for five hours, so he could race over to nearby Hertford to say goodbye. He promised he would be back well before dawn.

And now, he was free! He grabbed his partially full flask of whiskey and three emergency guineas, which had been stored in his cache tree. Then he crept onto Longbourn land to fetch some well water. It was foolish to wash up on a cold December night, but Wickham was confident that he could steal some warmth, and he did not want to look unkempt, once the sun was up.

Next, he jogged back to Meryton to keep his internal temperature warm even as his cheeks lost all feeling from cold. He picked the lock of the haberdashery and was able to steal a fresh shirt and a linen towel. He groomed himself as carefully as he could, and he hid his old shirt between a dozen bolts of cloth.

Wickham exited the shop and quickly moved to a sheltered spot in the forest. He needed a bit of sleep before he put into motion his plan…a plan that should gain him plenty of money whilst also providing the only thing in the world that he loved more than money: revenge on Darcy.